Talk:Gender role

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Culture
— Assignment last updated by Jeyoungx (talk) 17:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: University Writing 1020 Communicating Feminism MW 1 pm
— Assignment last updated by Cjsmith7 (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Gender role is one thing, discrimination against women is another
A lot of the recent content (almost entirely unsourced) added recently (mostly here) is not pertinent to the topic of this article. It would be fine in an article about misogyny or discrimination against women, or gender inequality, and perhaps other articles, but gender role is about something else, and adding information about how relatively few actresses are hired or represented with speaking roles is not relevant to what the gender roles are. Is there a confusion about the different meanings of "film role" and "gender role perhaps? has been doing a valiant effort to try and rescue this, but I just don't think it's living in the right article. A lot of the content looks promising, and if cited would well deserve a place somewhere, but I don't believe this is the right place for it. Unless someone can make an argument for keeping it here, as opposed to elsewhere, I plan to remove it at some point. Adding ., could you review sourcing with this editor?  They did add one source later, but that isn't close to adequate, whether the content remains here, or moves elswehwere.  Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There had been an existing subsection for Media that was in the midst of a subsection for Studies on marriage in the U.S., that did not really seem to directly relate to marriage, and when it began to be further expanded, this made it clear it all needed to move, so I created a new main section. I have added templates to various new subsections with the hope editors could receive this as constructive feedback, consult their instructor and WikiEd support, and have some time to develop the content., I think your comments about how the new content relates to the article topic are helpful, and I think this could be an opportunity for editors to consider how to further develop the content either in this article or elsewhere. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 01:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * As a follow up comment, and pinging editors who have recently contributed content:, , , and , as well as ; on Google Scholar, searches for gender roles and social media, gender roles and film, and gender roles and television may offer useful sources to help develop content in this article. Beccaynr (talk) 18:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you @Mathglot and @Beccaynr for your helpful commentary and links. I've reached out to the students and asked them to participate in this discussion and to address the unsourced work asap. Hope they make it out here, but if they don't, they're aware that unsourced work can/will be reverted. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:55, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Extending Beccaynr's sourcing link idea with these "find sources" links:
 * Find sources for  and ...
 * Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Moved two sections from the article to this section for further work, or to be picked up and moved to a more relevant article if desired:

Women’s roles in television tend to be focused on their relationships with men rather than their own personal goals. Many examples of this are prevalent in teen drama shows (E.g. The Vampire Diaries, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill). These shows tend to revolve around an everlasting love triangle that throughout the run of the show destroys relationships that the female character has with others. It also paints the image that women in television are only seen as sex objects which shines a negative light on women in real life

Many female characters' personalities seem to revolve around their love life rather than any true, redeeming qualities they may have (ncbi.gov, Sex Roles). Their appearance also is seen as their “best trait” in many cases. When casting, casting directors tend to look for certain traits when casting female leads for shows. This includes being thin, pretty, tall, etc. These qualities are looked at more compared to others because these are the believed qualities that will attract viewers to continue watching the show (Susan D. Witt, lewisu.edu). These qualities are compared to those of men that include being strong, smart, ambitious, etc. Remarks made towards them throughout the show, and while at award shows/premieres, emphasizes that this is something that people want in order to make their show more appealing.

Dr. Martha Lauzen, an executive director at San Diego State University, wrote a report that found that when women are producing or directing shows more women get hired (Corinne Segal, PBS). The number of women working in the television industry is already low, women television directors making up only 12%, which means the amount of women being hired is also much lower. Additional research found that streaming services have a higher percentage of women actors compared to broadcast television (Elizabeth Blair, NPR). Women's speaking roles on streaming services make up 47% while on broadcast television it makes up 45%. This is the same with main character roles for women which make up 50% on streaming services and only 48% on broadcast television.

With appearances being a very prevalent part of television, actresses' appearances changing is showcased to the world no matter how big or small. Women tend to be bashed online when something has changed in their appearance. Many women who begin acting as children, and continue acting into adulthood, get bullied by magazines or tabloids over natural appearance changes that they can’t help. An example of this is Sasha Pieterse from Pretty Little Liars. She was heavily criticized online for gaining weight throughout the course of the show. She spoke about how these comments negatively affected her but she continued to get hate. Ageism is something else that many women experience as they are in the spotlight over time. Brooke Shields is quoted saying, “It's like you go from sexy to Depends,” (All Things Considered, NPR).

Studies have shown that the portrayal of women in films differs from that of men in film. Theorists, such as Laura Mulvey, Judith Mayne, Noël Carroll, and others all discuss how the roles of women within films tend to fit a certain misogynistic and stereotypical purpose, which tends to be to fit the male gaze, over-sexualize women, or further the classical gender roles placed on women. These ideas can be seen within some of the most well-known films, such as the Twilight Saga, the Transformers series, Wolf of Wall Street, and many of the original Disney Princess Films.

Within Keisha Hoerrner’s article about gender roles in Disney films, Hoerrner explores the ways in which women characters all throughout the Disney film franchise are portrayed, and how these misogynistic stereotypes could be affecting the perspectives of the young minds who are consuming these films. Hoerrner compares the differences between how heroes and heroines are displayed throughout several Disney films, describing how the heroines tend to be more dependent on male assistance or validation to be successful in their goals, while male heroes are shown in a more self-sufficient and brave light.

San Diego State University conducted a study and found that the percentage of women speaking roles within films declined from 37% in 2022 to 35% in 2023, and the number of female characters in major roles remained at 38%. SDSU also found that the percentage of films with female protagonists contracted from 33% in 2022 to 28% in 2023.

Many theorists have used the Bechdel Test as a scale of how “feminist” a film is. It has been found that some of the most famous and popular films that are consumed by the general public do not pass the Bechdel Test, and most feminist theorists argue the consumption of films that do not pass the test negatively contributes to the continuation of unfair gender roles. Some films that have been reported not to pass the Bechdel test are The Avengers, The Lord of the Rings, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Lion King, Star Wars original trilogy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Casablanca, and Finding Nemo.

If nothing happens with this in a couple of weeks, I will remove the collapsed content. It's still available in article history (or here), of course. Brianda, not sure if you want to ping any of the student editors on this. Mathglot (talk) 08:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Sending smoke signals to @Laeismann, @Adakirkland, @Calliehoffman, @Oliviawamble. The editors on this discussion have provided helpful links to find reliable sources and created this collapsed section to improve the content. I encourage you to fix the issues so that the content can continue to be on Wikipedia Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Race in America, sec 1
— Assignment last updated by Tinytornado14 (talk) 16:59, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology of Gender
— Assignment last updated by Zisha68 (talk) 02:34, 29 April 2024 (UTC)